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Louis Charles de Blois de Penthievre
Louis Charles Emmanuel Marie de Blois de Penthièvre (29th January 1737 - Present) is a Grandelumierian nobleman, statesman, military officer, and banker. He is the son of Louis Chrétien, Duc de Penthièvre and his wife, Marie-Augustine Laurene de Rochechouart de Mortemart. He is currently the head of the Blois de Penthièvre, granting him the designation Monsieur le Prince. From 1763, he was Controller-General of Finances, Preceptor to the Petit-Dauphin, Grand Huntsman of Grandelumiere, and Premier Gentilhomme de la Manche, along with other positions of his own design, which along with his high rank established him as a politically influential member of the court. He was notably influential in developing the War of British Succession and Grandelumiere's strategy in Europe and the colonies. Biography Infancy Louis Charles was delivered on the 29th of January, 1737 at the royal Chateau d'Argenteuil, in the apartments of Monsieur le Prince on the Rue des Princes. His mother was Marie-Augustine Laurène de Rochechouart de Mortemart, one of the infamous Mortemarettes, and his father, Chrétien de Penthievre, was Duc de Penthievre and the premier Prince of the Blood, thus styled as Monsieur le Prince. Charles was born the second son and child of the couple, and from birth was styled as Duc de Berry. In his infancy, his mother placed him under the governorship of the Baronne de Malesherbes, who his great uncle, the Cardinal Mortemart, valued highly, and frequently patronized with the raising of Mortemart children. Childhood Alongside his siblings, "Charlie" as he was referred to by his family, lived in the familiar abode at Bizy, though his mother attempted to emulate and enforce the Mortemart way throughout their childhood, rigorously training them for the court-ruled lives ahead of them. It was noticed from an early age, by his uncle, the Comte de Guingamp, (his uncle though Charles was the elder), that Charles was particularly strange in his manner; he cared not for conversation, unless on something rather mundane or specific to his interests, in which case he rambled. His mother, ever the Mortemart described it as, "The boy inherited his grandfather's witless nature and has been poisoned by his uncle's bookish lunacy." This strange demeanor did not stop Charles in his learning, as he excelled at little else besides that under the watchful eye of the Abbé de Saint-Jacut. Under the direction of the Abbé, Charles thrived in his education, particularly with the subjects of Latin, Greek, mathematics, and various other sciences, though he particularly and genuinely enjoyed the study of history. Though his uncle was similarly minded and adept academically, he was kept away as often as possible at the insistence of Madame la Duchesse, due to her visceral mistrust of the "full moon Penthièvre" as she had referred to him once. The young Guingamp was eventually sent to the University of Paris at the tender age of fourteen, where he would embark on a brief though notorious career, while the Penthièvre-Mortemart children remained at Bizy. Adolescence At the age of sixteen, after the unexpected loss of his elder brother, the Prince de Lamballe, Charles was introduced to court along with his sister, Mademoiselle de Chartres, who was similarly debuted. Charles was granted apartments at the end of the Rue d'Honneur overlooking the gardens, and through his mother's established influence, was inducted into the Order of Saint Benignus. Due to his suddenly improved status as an heir, Charles' position at court and as a bachelor attracted the attention of many debutantes and their fathers. Though his birth designated him rather august, Charles' disinterested nature and deficient skills as a conversationalist rendered him a rather unknown presence. And though marriage offers still persisted in the direction of Madame la Princesse, who drove Penthièvre interests at court, the Cardinal de Mortemart was noted to have said, "The boy is marked for Mortemart.". Despite further faux pas and a perpetual lack of display of proper interest in general society, the young Duc de Berry was betrothed to the Mademoiselle de Rohan, his cousin, whose brother, the Duc de Rohan had petitioned Madame la Princesse for a marriage, with a generous offer of dowry. And so, the marriage was sealed between Rohan and Penthièvre in the spring of 1758 the two married at Notre Dame in Paris. Travels in Italy After a few months of an initially prosperous and relatively happy marriage (the couple had managed to conceive their first child with some haste), Charles, suddenly dissatisfied with being both "married to the court and my wife, neither being more expensive than the other", decided to depart from court for Italy with his cousin, the Bishop of Soissons, who had been appointed as a legate of the Crown Cardinal to Rome. The pair, along with their entourage, which included the flowering artist and architect Jean-Pascal Lavaud resided in Avignon briefly, then traversed through the Alps and Piedmont, finally landing in Genoa in August, where he visited the Palazzo Rosso, a palace reserved for foreign dignitaries. Arriving in Rome on the 20th of September in 1758, while his cousin conducted business in the Vatican, Charles migrated between the houses of the Roman aristocracy, attending the theater, art salons, and conversazioni regularly, Charles became quite fluent in Italian rather quickly. At an audience with the Pope, only four months into his visit in Rome, the Bishop of Soissons remarked of Charles, "He, upon reverence to His Holiness, spoke in the alarmingly beautiful intonation of Italian, though dressed in the latest imbecile Roman fashion, pleased His Holiness in conversation to a degree unexpected of such a singularly peculiar boy." Despite Charles' suddenly found comfort and affinity in high society, with it he acquired more ignoble practices; He drank to excess many nights and frequented Roman pleasure houses nearly as frequently as his own residences. It is even rumored that while in Rome, he took a mistress, Camila Barberini, who belonged to a prominent Roman family, with whom Charles fathered a child. Evidence remains scarce, though it was said Camila was sent away to the Italian countryside after the Duc de Berry had been residing at the Palazzo Barberini for nigh on three months. After a rumored quiet removal from the Barberini house on the 2nd of February 1759, Charles was received in the Palazzo Muti, home to the exiled House of Stuart and their Jacobite court, who last landed on British soil with the Jacobite Rising of 1719, though plots for further insurrection in 1722 and 1745 were made, neither came to fruition. Charles gave the King a dozen fine vintages and a winning painting from the Prix de Rome of 1758, a gift totaling around 10,000 scudi. For his introductory service, he was granted generously decorated and spacious apartments and was even briefly considered as a candidate for the post of Gentiluomo di Camera (Gentleman of the Bedchamber). At Muti, Charles became associated with many Jacobite sympathizers from Scotland, England, and Ireland, as well as many traveling British and Irish gentlemen, who often visited the Jacobite court as a sight on their larger grand tours of Europe. A month into Charle's residence, James' son, Prince Charles Edward Stuart (who had been named Prince-Regent in 1743), returned to Rome after years of unfruitful solicitation for the Jacobite cause. The two Charles', turned sour by years of failure and quite enslaved by alcoholism, got along quite well; both were helpless dreamers and idealists and the Prince had finally found a companion to submerge common vice with. Andrew Lumisden, a prominent Jacobite, wrote of the Duc de Berry: "At the oratorio, the Prince ''Charles ''is often accompanied by devoted company, currently Sir Henry Goring, Sir Thomas Sheridan, and the Duke of Berry.". Charles' favor with the Prince, even as it pitted him against James, was advantageous for the Jacobite cause. Through his cousin's connections at the Vatican, Charles was able to expand the Swiss Guard assigned to the Palazzo del Re by half a company of foot and a dozen cuirassiers. By the time Berry departed in the winter of 1759, he left with promises to sing the praises of the Jacobite cause at Argenteuil. On the 5th of December in 1759, the Duc de Berry, along with Andrew Lumisden, the personal secretary to Prince Charles, who traveled with the Duc on a mission to gather support in Grandelumière. Berry also brought with him a circus of painters, portraitists, sculptors, engineers and architects who he planned to employ with his own family. The retinue wintered in Florence, and in April 1760, they slowly traveled back to Grandelumière, passing through Bologna, Modena, Parma, and Milan. Charles finally arrived in Paris in early July of that year and resided at the Hôtel de Penthièvre until he reintroduced himself to the court at Argenteuil in late summer. Return to Court Upon his return to court, Charles was immediately faced with increased scrutiny for his poor legacy as a rather unsuccessful courtier and now as an unflattering drunk. His relationship with his wife had become quite estranged, as the newly-weds had been apart for years, and hardly knew each other, though their first child, the Prince de Lamballe, had been born while Charles was away. Charles simply continued his Roman lifestyle at court, for all the problems it created. His behavior continually brought him nothing but scolding and shunning from members senior to him. All the while Charles spent immense amounts of borrowed money obsessing over his most recent interest: architecture, which sent him into development into Le Pavilion Rose, a pavilion in the Duchy of Rambouillet which was initially dedicated to his wife, Madame la Duchesse, though it quickly became his own obsession, as he indebted himself to the Swiss bankers in Paris purchasing immense amounts of silver, marble and purple fabrics and dyes to embroider his provincial escape. While his father, the Duc de Penthièvre continually paid off his debts which extended far beyond Charles' pension, with his Mortemart wife protesting all the while, Charles' negligence brought him into contact with the most detestable and debauched portions of Parisian society, and even worse, a married woman. In this case, it was the Duchesse de Choiseul, sister to the Duc de Mortemart. Though the two had been introduced previously, they became acquainted at a ball held by Mortemart at the Lapis Pavilion, and thus began a rather passionate, but brief affair at court, much to the dismay of his mother and his wife. The complications that fettered the affair eventually came to haunt him when the Duc de Choiseul discovered the affair, all the while it became quite public to the court and the Duchesse was dispatched to an abbey. After over a year of a seemingly endless series of faux pas, Charles finally mustered the courage to abandon drinking entirely, though the attempt was short-lived, a few days at best was all he could manage at first. In the lapses between brief sobriety, Charles experienced his worsts bouts of drinking to date. At his father's funeral, in which he inherited his estate entirely, he was helplessly intoxicated, to the extent of being barred from the Eucharist. Political Career Despite these shortcomings, Charles (largely through his mother's influence), replaced the Comte de Sezanne as Controller-General of Finances, which began to bring Charles out of nearly irreversible addiction. Charles began in his office by replacing the extensive web of intendants with his own men, either by way of favor, friendship, or talent. A year into his tenure as Controller-General, all 33 of the intendants under his office had been carefully selected and appointed by Charles. His second action as Controller-General was the establishment of the Banque Royale, ''a crown-mandated joint-stock fund based at the Hôtel Tubeuf along with the Grandelumierian East India Company. Charles initially issued 5,000 shares at a price of 1,000 livres, though success did not initially come as Parisian financial markets were dominated by the Swiss Protestant bank houses. Initially, He was widely ridiculed for the ''Banque Royale experiment. One pamphlet branded it as "La banque de cuivre" ''(The copper bank). Though the bank's prosperity gradually increased as Charles introduced an early form of margin buying, in which an aspiring shareholder need only pay for one-fifth of the share price in cash. Additionally, he added a 20% dividend to the shares, which peaked all of financial Paris' interest, suddenly changing the public opinion of the bank. Due to such an increase in attraction, the bank issued an additional 20,000 shares in March of 1763, and by the end of the month, the bank's capital reached ten million livres, and began acquiring shares of the ''Compagnie des Indes Orientales ''and the ''Compaigne de Chine. Subsidized with funds from his own office's levy, the bank became a major shareholder in these companies and thus merged them into a single Compagnie Royale des Indes Orientales ''with a crown mandate for monopoly over the East Indies with Charles at its head under the crown. The following year, the Royal Bank reached five hundred million livres in capital with a total of three hundred thousand issued shares and began lending to crown, paying off its debts in significant sums. In addition to his advances in Paris, Charles acquired the position of ''Grand Échanson de Grandelumière ''(Grand Cupbearer of Grandelumiere), for a price of 150,000 livres. The position brought him into even closer proximity to the King, and thus was able to coax his way into another position, the Grand Huntsman of Grandelumiere, right after the untimely death of the Prince de Condé, who designated it to no man in his will. Charles received the position immediately before a royal hunt for the Beast of Fontainebleu was to be held, and the task of arranging it was left to Charles and the small office of huntsman under him. As he was no stranger to wolf hunting himself, Charles planned the hunt a finely traditional fashion, with dozens of bloodhounds and sighthounds. Though the first day had resulted in a complete disaster, with three deaths not counting the number of lost hounds and horses, with only a few wolves killed, Charles led a smaller hunt the next day which saw the death of over ten wolves including the Beast of Fontainebleu itself, with the assistance of the Chevalier de Rohan, the Baron de Rullecourt and three bloodhounds. The eventual success in the hunt secured Charles' position as huntsman and favor, at least temporarily with the crown. '''War of the British Succession' In the spring of 1763, Charles now free of his reliance on alcohol, abstaining from its consumption entirely, started a plan involving the Grandelumierian support for the Jacobite cause, which he had promised the Stuarts years ago. The plan initially was centered around himself as its chief architect as he allocated funds from his office towards the building of ships and the raising of men. Soon the plan involved 75 million livres and the Grand Dauphin, the Marquis de Louvois, and the Mademoiselle d'Auvergene. In the coming months, it became a public matter and Charles' extensive plan was adopted by the King publicly, and a formal alliance was signed with the House of Stuart. Charles was given a commission as a Colonel-General, and given a mandate for a private expedition, though partially subsidized by the King by way of Charles' finance ministry, to take the Channel Islands. He set about preparing two nominally owned regiments, the Penthièvre Infantry and the Chartres Infantry, as well as a detachment from the Penthièvre Cavalry and sent them to prepare at Saint-Brieuc. On June 20, Monsieur le Prince, along with his political ally, the Prince-Bishop of Strasbourg departed from Saint-Malo with a small squadron of three ships of the line stripped of the cannons as transports, and two fully armed frigates. They sailed the short distance to Jersey, where they debarked in Ouaisné Bay on Jersey. They landed on the island largely unopposed, and thus marched towards the port town, St. Helier. Along the way, the Cardinal insisted that they burn the village of St. Peter in order to gain needed provisions by ransacking before continuing onto facing the British. Their small force fought the majority of the Battle of Jersey in the town of St. Helier, previous to which Monsieur le Prince offered the governor of the island, George Colingwood terms of surrender prior to combat, this time at the protest of the Cardinal, who insisted on winning a decisive victory without terms. Following their victory at Jersey, Charles sailed to Guernsey, where a far more difficult and opposed landing was made on the island's rocky shores. The force quickly made way for St. Peter Port, along the way, the Cardinal torched the village of Les Vauxbelets in order to deter the Guernsey Militia, though upon sacking the small settlement, the militia descended upon the Grandelumierians, who for a brief moment were caught off-guard in a chaotic ambush that nearly turned them, though efforts by Charles and the Cardinal turned the militiamen to rout. Hours later the island surrendered to Charles and the Cardinal. After winning Guernsey, Charles, the Prince-Bishop, and the Penthièvre Regiment returned to Grandelumière, and Charles resumed his political offices at court, governing many major strategic decisions in the war, with his new focus becoming neglected India. With funds from the Banque Royale and from taxes raised in Brittany, his new chartered Compaigne Royale des Inde''s ''Orientales ''was able to commission a dozen ships of the line and over two score frigates and merchantmen and pursue a more aggressive stance in the Indian subcontinent and challenge the British East India Company more directly, though the Grandelumierians and British had been skirmishing and fighting proxy wars in India for decades. Charles maneuvered to secure the posting of Hyacinthe Gaëtan de Lannion as Governor-General of Grandelumierian India along with the rank of Lieutenant-General and arranged to send him off to India with a thousand men and four million louis d'or for the raising of a native Indian force. Charles also dispatched envoys to the Mughal Emperor Alam II with gifts including a jeweled silver-hilted sabre, a gold medallion bearing the likeness of Louis XIV, and furs of ermine and wolf, along with his good graces and intention of alliance against the British, which Alam was more than happy to give in exchange for Grandelumierian support in affirming his legitimate rule in India. Along with the Governor-General, Charles sent the Sieur de Bourbriac to treat with the ''de facto ruler of Mysore, Hyder Ali who, while wary of foreigners, accepted Bourbriac's embassy. Charles believed that he could use the Dalavayi's mistrust against the British for Charles' own gain. Once again Charles presented a collection of gifts to Ali containing the services of a Grandelumierian painter, René Bousquet, bottles of champagne, and a gilded clock. Following the flight of King George to America, Charles was one of those who initially advocated for seeking terms with the Hanoverians, though after firm resistance from King Charles III, he pressed to overwhelm the Thirteen Colonies by force of arms on land and sea. Charles then schemed to have the command of the fifteen thousand men gathered to send to North America given to the Marquis de Nesle, who Charles deemed as the most reliable and personally loyal out of all the commanders available. Meanwhile, while Charles' interests in the war flourished, his court career continued to grow as well. Shortly after he arranged the sale of the office of Huntsman to the Duc de Rohan for 200,000 livres, the Grand-Dauphin bestowed the office of Premier Gentilhomme de la Manche onto him not long after the sudden passing of the Duc de Chaulnes. By the end of the war in the summer of 1765, Charles had overseen the spending of nearly 350,000,000 livres on the war effort, and lent 50,000,000 from the reserves of the Banque Royale to the Royal Company of the East Indies to further interests in India against the East India Company. Regarding the Treaty of Paris which formally concluded the war, Charles pressured the Marquis de Beaupré into disowning the Hanoverians from their native Hanover, and was staunchly in support of crippling the East India Company and while Grandelumiere certainly became the dominant power in India following the war, the East India Company was allowed to linger in Western India. Death of the Dauphin On July 16, 1765 the Grand-Dauphin, Louis Auguste, succumbed to illness suddenly. The event, which had come as a surprise to everyone, was especially painful for Charles who had been his Premier Gentilhomme for two years and had become quite attached to the prince. Though he lost the position of Premier Gentilhomme (it was vacated), he was the author and executor of the Dauphin's will, and was treated quite generously within the document; he received several paintings, pieces of furniture from the Dauphin's court apartments, two Sevrés vases, a solid silver vase and table, a variety of jeweled rings, and the 140 carat diamond named Valois ''appraised at nearly seven million livres. Following the death of the Grand-Dauphin, his son, the Duc de Bar and to whom Charles was preceptor, became the singular Dauphin at ten years old. Suddenly, hundreds who never paid an ounce of attention to Bar came streaming out of the woodwork to pay him their respects and curry favor and relationship with their new Dauphin. To avoid this annoying fact, (Charles was quite adamant about the Dauphin’s undistracted education), and to avoid others perhaps gaining an edge on Charles, he transported the Dauphin, his household of servants and tutors, and the especially large local Penthièvre household of 146 to the Palace de Tuileries for over a month. Personality and Appearance Charles was never considered handsome by any standards. He was tall and slender with an aquiline nose, and profound, almost jagged cheekbones. He had intensely pale, sallow skin, harshly blemished with a head of coarse, thin hair that was always trimmed very short. He wore what was considered a barely mandatory amount of powder, though an exceptional amount of blush on his cheeks. Something singularly beautiful about Charles were his bright hazel eyes which sat nicely proportioned on his face. Inherited from his Mortmemart mother, who was hailed as the most beautiful woman at court even in her aging, it was viewed as a mark of Charles' membership to the Mortemart family. In his youth, Charles was often considered to be emotionally stunted, practically a recluse himself without any inkling of social wants nor skills in that regard. Though grown out of his infantile introversion through a brief life of exuberant indulgence and reckless spending of unlimited wealth on excessive debauchery, in his majority, he is often described by those who know him best as rather bright in mind and character, as well as perspicuous and sharp-witted, though often crass and boarish in his fits of drinking, in his tenacious struggle with alcoholism. Despite all, Charles sustained a child-like passion for all things scientific, historical, and foreign. Throughout his life, he was thrilled by subjects like astrology, architecture, sailing, history, literature, and art. Though his burning passions changed like the seasons, and he was often confined in interest solely to a subject matter he took to work on a particular day, or read of in a particular book, (of which he collected thousands). He was also a member of the ''Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres ''and held seat twenty of the ''Académie Gauloise. Issue * Louis-Jean Thibault ''Prince de Lamballe'' (7 March 1759 - Present) * Marie-Adèle Athénaïs ''Mademoiselle de Rambouillet'' (15 January 1761 - Present) * Louis François Casimir Duc de Châteauvillain ''(February 17 1762 - Present) * '''Anne-Louise Joséphine 'Mademoiselle de Chartres (June 26 1764 - Present) Illegitimate * Erasmus della Casagrande '''(October 17 1759 - Present) Titles, Styles, and Honors '''Titles * Duchies **Duc de Penthièvre, Duc de Chartres, Duc de Berry, Duc de Lorraine, Duc d'Amboise, Duc de Châteauvillain, Duc de Rambouillet, Duc de Gisors, Duc d'Arc-en-Barrois, Duc d’Aumale * Principalities ** Prince de Lamballe, Prince de Dombes, Prince de Joinville * Marquisates ** Marquis de Vernon, Marquis de Civry, Marquis de Montrichard * Counties ** Comte de Dourdan, Comte d'Eu, Comte de Guingamp, Comte d’Anet, Comte de Toulouse, Comte de Romorantin, Comte de Mortain, Comte de Bar-sur-Seine, Comte d’Auge, Comte de Saint-Sauveur-le-Comte * Baronies ** Baron d’Andely, Baron d’Autrain, Baron de Beaucaire, Baron de Châteauneuf-en-Thiherais * Lordships ** Seigneur de Bégard, Seigneur de Jugon, Seigneur de Noyal, Seigneur de Plestan, Seigneur d’Auray, Seigneur de Carbaix, Seigneur de Dinan, Seigneur d’Hennebont, Seigneur de Fougères, Seigneur de Ploëmel, Seigneur de Quimper, Seigneur de Quimperlé, Seigneur d’Etables, Seigneur de Sceaux, Seigneur de Chatenay, Seigneur de Châtillon, Seigneur de Plessis-Piquet, Seigneur de Bourg-la-Reine, Seigneur de Fontenay-aux-Roses, Seigneur d’Antony, Seigneur de Bagneux, Seigneur de Brie-Comte-Robert, Seigneur de Lesigny, Seigneur de Ferolles, Seigneur de Chevry, Seigneur de Laqueue-en-Yvelines, Seigneur du Tréport, Seigneur de Guerville, Seigneur de Lougroy, Seigneur de Saint-Pierre-en-Val, Seigneur de Bailly, Seigneur d’Orges, Seigneur de Créancy, Seigneur de Coupray, Seigneur de Blessonville, Seigneur de Richebourg, Seigneur d’Aubepierre-sur-Aube, Seigneur de Montribourg, Seigneur de Courcelles, Seigneur de Bacqueville, Seigneur de Montribourg, Seigneur de Vernia, Seigneur de Pacy, Seigneur de Pré, Seigneur de Lyons-la-Forêt, Seigneur de Villeneuve-la-Garenne, Seigneur de Rochesuart, Seigneur de Couesnon, Seigneur de Lesneven, Seigneur de Carhaix Styles * January 29th, 1737 - April 22nd, 1763 ''Son Altesse Sérénissime, Monseigneur le Duc de Berry'' * April 22nd, 1763 - Present Son Altesse Sérénissime, Monsieur le Prince Honors * Chevalier de l'Ordre de Saint-Benignus * Chevalier de l'Ordre de Saint-Michael * Chevalier de l'Ordre de Toison d'Or Category:Grandelumierian Nobility Category:18th Century Births Category:Grandelumierian Dukes Category:Imperial Court Category:Princes du Sang Category:House Blois de Penthievre Category:Imperial Household Category:Ministers of State